


Lessons in Unpredictability

by angellwings



Series: Lessons [1]
Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Archery, Background Case, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Romance, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 16:52:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4795022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angellwings/pseuds/angellwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ezekiel and Stone learn a something unexpected about Cassandra Cillian. Takes place before my one shot "Lessons in Falling."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lessons in Unpredictability

**Author's Note:**

> In "Lessons in Falling" I mentioned a new head canon of mine and after talking about it with the folks on Twitter I ended up writing this. I have a million other things I should be writing but I just couldn't stop once I'd started. Hope you guys enjoy! Happy reading!  
> angellwings

They’d been pulled into a game of sorts, with challenges and puzzles and trials. Someone had gotten the better of Baird and in order to get her back they’d have to make it through all of these challenges. They’d had to use all their skill and brains to get passed the earlier trials and each one seemed intended for one of them specifically. For Ezekiel there had been a large metal door covered in padlocks that he’d had to pick his way through as the room shrunk around them. For Jake there had been one long passage in several different languages that had been mixed up and distorted and he’d had to set it right as the floor fell out from underneath them. Each solution opened a door and led them deeper and deeper in. They hoped at the end they’d find Baird. The first room had been intended for Cassandra and had challenged her synesthesia and her knowledge of math and science so once they’d gotten through Jacob’s door they’d assumed they would reach the end.

They didn’t.

No, now they were in yet another room.

This one had various round targets set up at one end of the room. Each a different size and shape with one at the very top that had a tiny metal ring in front of it. The door behind them slid closed and vanished.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Stone grumbled as he pounded on the stone wall where the door had been. “How many of these are we going to have to complete before we get to Baird?”

“We don’t even know if this is going to lead us to Baird,” Ezekiel reminded him. “For all we know we’re trapped in some sick cycle for the rest of our lives.”

“No,” Cassandra told them. “Whatever this is wants us to reach the end. We’re being tested.”

“Then how many more tests are we going to have to pass?” Jacob asked irritably.

The room shook and the walls around them seemed to groan as bits of dust fell from the ceiling. There was a moment of silence and then flames bursted from a square black panel to the right of Cassandra. Jacob immediately wrapped a hand around her wrist and pulled her to him. Their eyes met once the flames died and lingered for a long moment. Jacob realized he’d released her wrist several minutes ago and wrapped an arm around her waist instead. He cleared his throat and slowly pulled his arm way as Cassandra blushed and looked down at the ground.

“Um, sorry, I just—the flames were right there and—“

“No, it’s okay, really,” she said with shy smile. “Thank you.”

Ezekiel rolled his eyes at them and shook his head before he brought them back to the trouble at hand. “Oy, focus. Those black panels are all around us. I’m assuming they all shoot flames. We’re screwed.”

Cassandra’s eyes narrowed and she glanced around the room. “No, we’re not. There’s a key to this like everything else.” Her eyes finally found the simple longbow and arrows nestled next to a wooden raised platform. She put together the bow and arrows with the five bullseyes against the far wall, and sighed. “This is a challenge for me,” she told them as she walked over and picked up the bow and held it out in front of her. She appeared to be weighing it in her hands and then she took a stance as if she were aiming and both men were surprised when she appeared to know what she was doing. She took the quiver of arrows and slipped the strap around her so that the arrows were on her back, within her reach, and then stepped onto the raised platform.

“Cassandra?” Jacob asked worriedly.

“6 arrows, five targets,” she said as she bit her bottom lip with a thoughtful glare. “The margin for error is minuscule at best.”

“I know you have the red curls going for you, kid, but Merida you are not,” Ezekiel said as he and Stone came to stand on either side of the platform.

“Shh,” she snapped. “I’m doing math.”

She took a deep breath and lifted the bow with her eyes focused on the first bullseye. Her stance looked firm and her body language was confident as she pulled an arrow from the quiver and aimed carefully. Both men held their breath as she let the first arrow loose. She hit the dead center of the first target and smiled victoriously.

“Still got it,” she muttered to herself. The first two rows of black panels squealed like nails on a chalkboard as they slowly flipped over to reveal plain stone on the underside. “Ten rows of panels. For each target two turn over.” She nodded and then pointed to the door at the other end of the room that hadn’t been there before. “Look, there’s our exit.”

She looked down at Jones and Jacob to find them staring at her with slack jaws and wide eyes.

She blushed and then smirked at them. “What?”

“How did you do that?” Jacob asked with an excited grin. She blushed as that grin was focused on her.

“Archery club,” she said with a giggle and a shrug. “The only extra curricular my parents approved of outside of math and science.” She turned to Ezekiel and grinned at him. “A few of those trophies they threw out were from competitions.”

“Alright,” Ezekiel said with a chuckle. “Maybe you are Merida.”

The room shook again the black panels that remained shot flames into the air and the platform Cassandra was standing on extended out a few feet and inched closer to the flames. The wall the targets were on adjusted and slid backward to maintain the distance.

“Cassandra,” Jacob said in alarm.

“Of course,” she said with a huff. “There’s a time limit like everything else.” She turned quickly to meet Jacob’s eyes. “I’m okay!”

She took another deep breath and pulled a second arrow from the quiver as the platform steadied itself. She took aim again and loosed the arrow quicker than the last. It hit the center of the target and another two rows of panels turned over. The third center target had a tiny metal ring a foot or so in front of it. She’d seen that before. The arrow had to go through the ring and then hit the bullseye. It was tricky, but she’d done it before. She could do it again. She focused her aim and quickly loosed another arrow. Her aim was perfect and she knew the arrow would go where she intended but it was stopped by a wall of stone that magically appeared in front of the target. Her brow furrowed and she winced as the arrow clattered against the ground.

“That’s not fair!” She yelled as the platform extended out over the panels again. “This game doesn’t work if you cheat!”

A moment later numbers appeared below the targets. Now she understood. The target on the far right had the number three in front of it and then the target to the left of it was labeled four. The center target was intended to be last. She’d lost an arrow for nothing.

“That would have been good to know before hand,” she mumbled to herself as she pulled out her fourth arrow. Now she had no room for mistakes. She had three arrows and three remaining targets. She glanced down at the black panels a few feet below her nervously.

“Cassandra!” Stone called to her. She turned and looked at him curiously. “You’ve got this. Focus on the bullseyes. Block out the rest.”

She nodded and smiled at him before she took aim at the third target. She released the arrow and again it hit the center. Two more rows of panels turned and she swiftly shot at the fourth target. Bullseye again. Two more rows. Just one target and two rows of black panels left. She glared at the center target. She would have made it last time. She knew it. Last arrow, last chance.  She focused her gaze, calculated the speed and the distance she’d need and took her aim.

“Thread the needle,” she whispered to herself as she released the final arrow. She could feel the tension in the room and held her breath. She had to succeed at this. She couldn’t fail Baird, she couldn’t fail The Library, she couldn’t fail _them_.

The arrow slipped cleanly through the metal ring and stuck solidly to the center of the last and final bullseye. The last two rows of panels turned as the platform returned to it’s original position. Ezekiel grinned and held out a hand for victorious high five and she chuckled as she obliged. Stone held out a hand to help her down from the platform. She hugged him as soon as her feet landed on the stone floor.

He seemed surprised and tensed slightly. She pulled back and smiled brightly at him.

“Thank you,” she told him. “For the pep talk. I needed it.”

He cleared his throat and nervously scratched the back of his neck. “Oh—oh, um yeah, you know. No problem. It was uh—you were uh—you um, you did good.”

Cassandra grinned at him in amusement as he stuttered. She could see Ezekiel hanging his head in exasperation out of the corner of her eye.

“Thanks, Stone,” Cassandra told him with a small affectionate smile.

“Yeah, yeah, uh—no problem.”

Ezekiel cleared his throat. “We should probably head for the door before this trap resets itself or something.”

“Yes, please,” Cassandra said quickly as she grabbed the bow and the quiver and sprinted for the door. She picked up a couple of the arrows that had fallen to the floor on her way out. Just in case.

There were two more tests. The next one was Ezekiel’s and tested his ability to strategize. He had to get them across a large open pit by placing a very limited number of pieces of wood across stone beams to build a bridge. If he placed them too close together, they’d be stuck in the middle of the room. Too far apart and they’d never make it anywhere. He got them to the other side successfully and, as predicted, the door from his test had led to another test for Stone. The last had tested his language skills and this one looked as though it planned to test his knowledge of art and history. There were two doors, two different colors, and he was supposed to determine which one they would take based only on a date and title of a work of art that was written on each door. Neither Cassie nor Ezekiel understood any of it, but they knew they could trust Stone to find the right one.

He reached for one door knob and then turned to look back and Ezekiel and Cassandra. “If there’s another test on the other side of this door I’m gonna punch something.”

“As long as you don’t punch me, mate,” Ezekiel said with a smirk.

Cassandra chuckled at them both and then nodded to the door. “Open it. Let’s get out of here.”

He opened the door and on the other side they found an unconscious Baird and dark haired man in an expensive three piece suit.

He chuckled darkly at them. “It seems my aunt spoke true,” he said with a smirk. “You are all, surprisingly, capable. Even without your precious Guardian.”

“We passed all of your little tests,” Stone said with a glare. “Let Baird go and let us out of here.”

“Oh, I have every intention of letting The Guardian go,” he told them. “I have no use for her.” He pointed his cane, that he twirled idly, at Ezekiel and Jacob. “You and you come and get her and then you may go.” Cassandra moved to follow them but found her feet frozen.

“Cassandra,” Ezekiel said as he and Jake hoisted Baird in between them. “You heard him. Let’s go.”

Jacob caught her alarmed look and then the smile on the unknown man’s face and shook his head. “No, this is too easy. Why did you bring us here in the first place? What did you want to learn from us?”

He grinned. “You’re brighter than I gave you credit for, Mr. Stone. You see, one of these things,” he said as he gestured to the Guardian and the three Junior Librarians. “Is not like the others. You two can take the Guardian and go, but _she_ ,” he told them as he pointed his cane at Cassandra. “Stays.”

“Hell no,” Ezekiel said immediately. “That’s not gonna happen.”

“She has the magical potential that I need,” the man told them. “If you want your freedom and your Guardian then she stays with me. That’s the choice.”

“Your _choice_ isn’t even an option,” Jacob sneered at him. 

The man laughed and cross the room to stand in front of Jacob and Ezekiel, leaving his back to Cassandra. She couldn't move her feet, but he’d left her arms free. She was never so glad to have a bow and a couple of arrows than she was right now. He had his cane clutched tightly in his hand and she studied it closely as she pulled an arrow out of her quiver. She really hoped the boys could keep him distracted. They appeared to be doing so. He was ranting about his master plan. She smirked. They always went on and on about their master plan. They never learned. The cane had a black stone on the top of it. A pulse of blue energy shot out of the stone and traveled down the length of the cane to the floor and suddenly she knew what to do. The cane was the source of his power. Only the stone was too small to hit. She grimaced as she realized what that meant. She only had one option left.

She lifted her bow, aimed her arrow, and shot. Seconds later the man howled in pain as the arrow pierced through his palm. He released the cane and as he did so Cassandra felt the magic that had held her still dissipating. Stone immediately picked up the cane to keep the man from snatching it back. Cassandra ran to them and urged them to head to the door. The boys hobbled along with Eve as quickly as they could while the man continued to cry out from a hunched position on the floor.

“I am Mordred!” he whined. “You cannot defeat me! This is not over!”

“That’s what they always say,” Cassandra called over her shoulder as she closed door behind them.

* * *

 

“I missed a lot, huh?” Eve asked as they sat her down in a chair in the Annex.

“You missed Cassandra shooting a guy in the hand with an arrow like a boss!” Ezekiel shouted with a chuckle. “Forget Merida, you’re Katniss,” Ezekiel told the red head.

She chuckled at him and shook her head. “He didn’t exactly leave me any other options.”

“Mordred,” Jenkins said with a tired sigh. “That brat is still alive?”

“Yeah and he’s a whiny egomaniacal bitch,” Eve spat with a roll of her eyes. “I was almost glad when he knocked me out,” she said as she pressed a bag of ice to her head. “At least I didn’t have to listen to him _talk_ anymore.”

“And he wanted Ms. Cillian for her ‘magical potential’?” Jenkins asked them.

“That’s what he said,” Jacob said stiffly. He had his arms crossed over his chest and he still looked worried and tense.

Jenkins stared at Cassandra for so long that she began to shift uncomfortably. What was he looking for exactly? “I have some research to do,” He said briskly before he suddenly turned and stalked off to his lab.

“What was that?” Cassandra asked.

“With Jenkins, who knows?” Eve said with a shake of her head. “Jones, drive me home. And, do us both a favor, and don’t talk. I wouldn’t want to have to shoot you.”

Ezekiel rolled his eyes but dutifully followed Eve out the door.

“Just another day at the office,” Ezekiel said with a smirk. “See you both tomorrow. Maybe.”

Jacob hadn’t looked at her once since they’d gotten back to the Annex. He kept his gaze on someone else or the floor or some mysterious space just passed her head but he’d never looked directly at _her_.

“Stone?” She asked hesitantly. “Are we…are we okay?”

“You didn’t say anything when you realized you were stuck,” he told her thoughtfully. “Why is that?”

“Jacob, I don’t think—“

“Why is that, Cassandra?” He asked as his eyes finally met hers.

“I didn’t want to stop you all from leaving,” she admitted with a sigh. “I thought once you guys were safe I could find my own way out, but I never got the chance to try that. You figured it out.”

He sighed and shook his head at her. “You realize the only one of us that’s expendable is Ezekiel, right?”

She threw a stony glare at him and he gave her a small grin in response.

“I’m kidding,” he admitted with a chuckle.

She pointed a scolding finger at him. “You better be.”

His grin faded into a concerned expression and he stepped closer to her. “Some days, I worry you’re gonna do something stupid and sacrifice yourself for us. Today was one of those days.”

“We’re all like that sometimes,” she told him dismissively.

“True, but _you_ worry me the most. Eve’s the Guardian, and as much as we hate it, that’s her job. Ezekiel won’t admit it but he’s pretty attached to us and this place, Jenkins has too much honor to run, and Flynn thinks the fate of the world is all on him. But you…you do it because you think you owe us. You think since your life is already short you should make it count for something. _That_ scares me,” he told her seriously. “We can protect each other form a lot of things, Cassie. But we can’t protect you from yourself.”

“Jake,” she said softly. She never realized that he…that he noticed those things. She never thought about how that might affect him. In those moments where she thought about saving them over herself all she thought about was that he’d be safe. That they’d all be safe. She never thought about what losing her would do to them. “I didn’t mean to—I never really thought about—“

“Just promise me,” he said as he interrupted her stuttering. “--promise me, that you’ll always try save yourself too. Deal?”

He held out his hand to her for a handshake and she nodded as she accepted it. She didn’t have any words to say in response. So a handshake was an acceptable alternative to her. “Deal,” she said simply. It seemed to be the only word she could manage.

He kept her hand in his long after the handshake ended and she gave him a curious glance. He still didn’t say anything but after a few moments she was almost certain they were now just holding hands.

“So,” he said as he adjusted their hands and then brushed his thumb over the back of her hand. “Archery, huh?”

She grinned at him and nodded. “Archery.”

“Like Tauriel from _The Hobbit_ films?” He asked reluctantly with a smirk.

She gave him an apologetic look and then shook her head. “I, um, I don’t know. I’ve never seen any of _The Hobbit_ movies.”

His eyes lit up and he beamed at her. “Really? None of them? Have you seen _the Lord of the Rings_ movies?”

She shook her head and smiled at him as he excitedly bounced, just a little, on the balls of his feet. 

“Well,” he said as he cleared his throat nervously. “I happen to own, you know, _all_ of them. We could watch one or two of them—if you’re not doing anything that is.”

She gave him a broad smile and blushed. “I have no plans whatsoever. Free as a bird.”

“And, um, maybe before we watch a movie we could have dinner?” He asked hopefully.

She nodded eagerly. “I would love to have dinner…together.” Was it a date? She asked herself. Please say it was a date.

Stone relaxed slightly and then switched hands so he held her left hand in his right and then laced their fingers together. He focused a crooked smile on her. “Then…it’s a date.”

She giggled and blushed brighter. “Yes, yes it is.”

 


End file.
